Development of a European Centre of Excellence (Coe) for Research in Continuing Professional Development (UPGRADE).

The European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Research in Continuing Professional Development (UPGRADE) is a pan-European network of researchers, clinicians, regulators, educators, and professional bodies, established in 2020 through a consensus group of experts, who defined its mission, vision, values, aims and objectives. The Centre's aim is to advance the science of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for healthcare professionals through research and dissemination of best practices for CPD. Debate among UPGRADE partners and interchange of research data will yield best practices across countries to optimise quality CPD programmes.

Nursing in Albania: A Catalytic Force in Transforming Health Professionals and Health Care.

Purpose: Transitions in nursing education and professionalism that align with global nursing standards are elucidated as critical success factors in transforming health professionals and health care in Albania. Progressive educational and regulatory pathways throughout the 2000s (1999-2020) are emphasized for their impact on the Albanian health system, including the achievement of universal healthcare coverage.

Methods: Data collected by the Ministry of Health and Sport and the Regulatory Authority for nursing and other healthcare professions in Albania were analyzed and outcomes explicated with regard to Albania's major health challenges.

Nursing's professional dignity in palliative care: Exploration of an Italian context.

Aims And Objectives: To determine the relevance of nursing's professional dignity in palliative care.

Background: Dignity is a valued concept in the ethical discourse of health disciplines. Nursing's professional dignity, a concept related to professional identity, is not clearly defined nor have its characteristics been delineated for its clinical relevance in palliative care.

Center of Excellence to build nursing scholarship and improve health care in Italy.

Purpose: This article profiles the establishment and initial phase (2010-2014) of a Center of Excellence (CoE) as an instrument to strengthen nursing scholarship and improve health care in Italy.

Approach: This CoE is unique as a non-university-based center. The National Regulatory Board of Registered Nurses, Health Visitors, and Pediatric Nurses (IPASVI) designated substantial administrative and funding support to the CoE for advancing nursing education, clinical practice, research development, and research training.

The Evolution of Professional Nursing Culture in Italy: Metaphors and Paradoxes.

We explored the perceptions of Italian nurses regarding their developing culture as a health profession. We sought to understand the ongoing evolution of the nursing profession and the changes that were central to it becoming an intellectual discipline on par with the other health professions in Italy. In 2010, the Regulatory Board of Nursing established a center of excellence to build evidence-based practice, advocate for interdisciplinary health care, and champion health profession reforms for nursing.

Cultural context of school communities in rural Hawaii to inform youth violence prevention.

Background: Escalation of youth violence within a large geographic school-complex area in southeastern rural Hawaii became a major problem in 2006. How cultural forces impact the problem was an impetus to examine youth violence from perspectives of adults and children in rural communities. Gathering these data was an essential first step toward school-based youth violence prevention program development.

Near misses: paradoxical realities in everyday clinical practice.

This qualitative study was conducted to define and describe what constitutes and contributes to near miss occurrences in the health-care system and what is needed to ensure safer processes of care. Nine health-care organizations (13 sites total) including six academic health sciences centres (acute care, mental health and geriatric) and three community hospitals participated in this study. The final sample consisted of 37 focus groups (86 in the nursing staff only; 62 in the pharmacy staff only; and 99 in the mixed nursing and pharmacy focus groups respectively) and 120 interviews involving 144 health-care consumers.

Talk-story: perspectives of children, parents, and community leaders on community violence in rural Hawaii.

Purpose: To enhance our understanding of what community violence means to a multiethnic school community in rural Hawaii and obtain people's perspectives of how to deal with and prevent violence-related behaviors among children.

Design And Sample: An exploratory design was used to collect qualitative data from a purposive sample of 150 key stakeholder participants, including 84 school children aged 5-10 years and 66 adults.

Measurement: Focus group methodology via Hawaiian island-style (culturally adapted techniques) of "talk-story" and a metaphor of introduction were used to elicit contextual data on the experiences, meanings, and perceptions of youth violence.

Building capacity for nursing research.

Given how important care processes are to the nursing profession, it is imperative that nurses take a lead role in building capacity for nursing research and that they make a strong contribution to building the body of knowledge in the area of patient safety. The authors present an overview of a current nursing-led patient safety study in which building capacity for research is a core component.

Talking circles: Northern Plains tribes American Indian women's views of cancer as a health issue.

Objective: The purpose of this research was to understand the cultural meanings of cancer among American Indian women from Northern Plains tribes living in western South Dakota and their experiential view of breast and cervical cancer screening.

Design And Sample: Using an exploratory design, a purposive sample of 28 women, 35-75 years of age, were recruited into three Talking Circles.

Measurement: Talking Circle and focus group methodology, combined with Affonso's Focus Groups Analytic Schema, were used to generate contextual data sets including thematic findings.

Patient safety culture and leadership within Canada's Academic Health Science Centres: towards the development of a collaborative position paper.

Currently, the Academy of Canadian Executive Nurses (ACEN) is working with the Association of Canadian Academic Healthcare Organizations (ACAHO) to develop a joint position paper on patient safety cultures and leadership within Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs). Pressures to improve patient safety within our healthcare system are gaining momentum daily. Because AHSCs in Canada are the key organizations that are positioned regionally and nationally, where service delivery is the platform for the education of future healthcare providers, and where the development of new knowledge and innovation through research occurs, leadership for patient safety logically must emanate from them.

The urban geography of SARS: paradoxes and dilemmas in Toronto's health care.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has impacted heavily on both Canada's society and its health care system. Quite unexpectedly, hospitals and health care workers became facilitators of disease diffusion. This experience has demonstrated the need for a comprehensive disease control strategy.

Patient safety to frame and reconcile nursing issues.

Canadian nursing leadership is called to advance a national patient safety agenda for the delivery of safe, quality care in professional practice environments. Yet, the nursing discipline is burdened by issues and challenges related to clinical practice and workplace dilemmas that contribute to barriers and obstacles to safe, quality and humane care. We propose that the many clinical challenges faced by nurses in Canada can be more fully understood when framed by a patient safety perspective.

Use of Care, Outcomes and Costs of a Culturally-based Perinatal Program for Asian American and Pacific Islander Women in Hawaii.

PURPOSE. This study examines whether psychosocial perinatal care services developed through community partnerships and cultural deference with attention to individual women's health issues, had an assocaited impact on use of prenatal care, birth outcomes and perinatal care costs for the three participating Asian Pacific Islander American ethinc groups. METHODS.

Associations of the Use of Prenatal Care with Low Birthweight in Asian Pacific Women in Hawaii.

PURPOSE. This study examines ethnic-specific differences in associations of inadequate use of prenatal care with poor birthweight outcomes to determine whether ethnic specific improvements in the use of prenatal care in a rural district could potentially reduce infant morbidity or mortality there. METHODS.